


Patch me up

by Ryenan



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Castiel, Blood, Hurt Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pain, Protective Dean Winchester, Serious Injuries, Wings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-15
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 08:38:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/721063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryenan/pseuds/Ryenan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is seriously injured, and goes to Dean for help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warning: A lot of blood in this one.

“Dean.” Castiel blinked into existence in the bathroom of the cheap motel, right out of Dean’s line of sight. It didn't scare him anymore though, because he had learned to feel it. To feel the change in the air, how it got just a touch warmer and a bit drafty, the air swirling around the room right before Cas would appear.

“Hey, Cas.”

“I... need your help.” his voice was ragged and tired sounding, and Dean nearly jumped out of bed, rushing to help his angel. 

Castiel was breathing shallowly, his left side drooping, slowly lowering himself to the floor. He was bleeding, and there was so much blood that it had soaked through his suit jacket and was staining his coat bright crimson. 

“Fuck, Cas,” Dean cursed as he crouched down next to his friend, bracing himself with a hand on the bathroom counter. “What the hell happened?”

He started trying to get Castiel out of his coat, but the blood was sticky and Cas wasn't helping much, with dead weight arms that he wouldn't bend. The coat was stiff and thoroughly soaked in blood, and the suit jacket underneath must have been as well.

“Four...angels,” Cas coughed, dark blood and spit mixing and staining his teeth and lips, before he drew a shuddering breath and continued, “Jumped me.”

“Damn it. Cas, you need to sit up, okay? I gotta get you out of these clothes -” Castiel coughed again, more blood running down his chin, and struggled to sit up and help.

“Don’t touch my back, the left side.” he was raspy and despondent, eyes creased and tightly shut in pain. 

“What did they -”

“They tried to rip my wings off.”


	2. Chapter 2

Dean sat back on his heels, stunned and confused. “But – how? “

“Dean.” Castiel’s voice was soft, and pleading, rubbed raw from the blood in his mouth which he was still coughing up.

“Please. I can’t do this..." He tugged weakly at his trenchcoat lapels, and Dean sprung back into action, gently pulling Castiel out of his trenchcoat and suit coat in one motion, before moving on to his shirt buttons. Castiel’s hands, trembling, came up to grip Dean’s.  
  
“I’ve got these.” Cas licked his bloody lips, cringing at the taste, and Dean carefully wiped the blood off of his lips and chin with the pad of his thumb.  
  
“Right.” Dean had no idea why he had done that. Cas was off limits, untouchable. He ducked his head and moved away, letting Cas take over the buttons and started unlacing his shoes, keeping his head down to hide his face. He yanked them off, and his socks, then crawling over his  legs to remove his belt. As he worked, his angels’ eyes slowly fluttered shut, breath becoming shallower, hands falling from his last button. Dean choked when he looked back up at him, pain and terror welling up in his throat.  
  
“Okay, Cas, can you talk to me? Stay awake, damn it.”  
  
“Sorry, Dean.” He opened his eyes slowly, blinked hard, and nodded at his friend, who smiled slightly. His voice was thick, and there was more worrying blood on his lips.  
  
“You’ll be okay, Cas.” Dean helped him struggle out of his blood soaked pants, leaving him in just Jimmy Novak’s boxer shorts.  
  
“Let’s get you onto the bed, okay?” Dean tried to keep some optimisim in his voice, to...fuck, he didn't know why. to make him hang on a little longer. Because it looked bad, too much blood on him to easily recover from. Cas nods, moving his legs slowly and clinging to Dean, who gently pulls his angel up to standing. Cas nearly falls, knees giving out and his head spinning from blood loss, but Dean keeps him righted and standing.  
  
“Sorry,” Castiel mumbles, coughing blood onto Dean’s shirt, “For everything.” his face is tucked into Dean’s shoulder, breathing shallow, and it takes all Dean has to keep from crying.  
  
“Shut up, Cas. You’re not going to fucking die on me.” It just slips out of his mouth, his one fear  - of Castiel dying - and he hopes to god....well Cas, really, that he doesn’t remember it when he gets better.  
  
Dean staggers out of the bathroom with pulls him onto the cheap motel comforter, face down so that he can access the wound.  
  
“Oh, Cas, man,” He whispers, voice trailing off as his eyes ghost over the pale flesh of his back. The blood there is dark and thick, with barely any smeared off by his over saturated coat and shirt.  
  
He must have been bleeding very heavily, Dean thinks, to soak his clothes and there be this much blood left on his back. The wound, a deep looking gouge with tattered edges, was still bleeding profusely. It was only a few inches wide, but ran down past his shoulder blade, dripping blood that slid down his side, hot and sharp smelling, to pool under him.  
  
“What can I do, Cas? Hey, wake up. Damnit, Cas, what do I do?” His heart seizes up until Castiel speaks again.  
  
“I just need time,” Castiel slurred, “and rest.”  
  
“Well I’m gonna clean you up, okay?”  
  
Castiel murmured something into the pillows, already half asleep, and Dean chose to take it as a yes.


	3. Chapter 3

The towels in the bathroom are white and slightly ratty, but they will do for cleaning Castiel’s back. At least they aren’t slathered in blood like his clothes are - he recently had to buy a few pairs of jeans after a run in with some nasty vamps left him without a decent looking pair, and now these are ruined too. His shirt was also new, but is now trashed, so he pulls it off. Dried blood sticking to you isn’t very comfortable, he tells himself, so Dean bites his lip and drags his jeans from his hips and tosses them on the floor.  Because hey, who cares? Cas is an angel. And it’s not that weird, because Cas and sex don’t rhyme, right? Right.

 

Dean cuts the towels into smaller pieces, watching the rise and fall of the sleeping angel’s back in the mirror. It doesn’t look as if he is having difficulty breathing, for which Dean is grateful, but he wakes Cas up before starting to wipe at the blood. Cas tensed up with a start, hissing sharply.

“Aah, Dean stop - ” His face is pale and pinched, fresh tears mingling with the blood beneath his eyes.

"My wings are connected all the way to the bottom of my ribs, Dean."

"Shit, Cas, sorry, can you - do you - have the juice to make them visible?"

Castiel sighs, and where at first there had been nothing, the shadowy wings Dean was accustomed to seeing appeared. Then started to thicken, surprisingly,  turning a dense black hat reminded Dean of demon smoke. They continued even farther, the black becoming shiny and smooth, finally forming into feathers that solidified completely and weighed heavily on the bed.

"Oh." Dean stared at Castiel - he had only ever displayed his smoky wings before, not these feathered, beautiful monstrosities. The right wing base ran from his upper shoulder blade to right above his lower back at the bottom of his ribs, but the left wing hung askew, ripped halfway off. It was twisted sideways,and unfurled, resting on the floor lightly but misshapen, seemingly bent in the wrong places.

"Whew. Cas, buddy, you got yourself into some deep shit here, hmm?" Dean is scared for him, but tries to keep his voice even. Looking at the misaligned, bloody wing hanging next to the shiny, perfect one, Dean wants to hunt the angels down and kill them, slowly. For the first time in a long time, he sees a good reason to implement the...skills he learned in the pit.

"I noticed." Cas is weak, but his voice doesn't tremble, resolute as always.

"how do you heal this?"

"Slowly. do you have a way to bind it down when you reposition it?"

"I’ll, uh, get the medkit out of the car, okay? just relax. you’ll be fine." He grabs his pants from the bathroom, pulling them on jerkily, and stumbles out of the room. He is shirtless and shoeless and covered in blood, and is damn happy that there is no one around to see him as he opens up the trunk of the Impala. The medical kit is huge, a monster size toolbox that must way fifteen pounds or more, and Dean hefts it out of the trunk and slams the lid. It may be large and unwieldy and remind him of Sam, who packed the damned thing, but it had saved his ass more than a few times and now he got to save Cas with a little piece of his baby brother.

Even with no one around to question the armory in the trunk or his blood soaked pants and smeared arms, he hurries back to the motel room. Placing the case on the floor, Dean kneels in front of it and pops the clasps open in record time. He tried not to look at his angel’s wings, how beautiful they were, even battered and broken.

"Okay, Cas, I need to put it back in position, right? And then get it to stay there?" He pulls out medical tape and ace bandages and gauze, trying to decide the best method of wrapping him up.

"Yes." He was raspy, and sounded strained. Dean looked up to find him trying to move farther to the right on the bed.

"Damnit, Cas, cut it out! You’ll pull it more!" He lunges forward and puts his hand on the back of his angels neck, effectively stilling him and sending a shudder through both men. Castiel says nothing, so Dean abruptly lets go of the fevered skin and returns to his suplies, gathering the tape and gauze and setting them on the small bedside table.

"So this is going to hurt pretty bad, I’m guessing, so try not to scream, okay?" Castiel nods into the pillow as Dean clinically examines his wing to determine the best way to grasp it.

"Cas...how much do your wings...  this wing...weigh?"

"The bathroom scale, which is an odd thing, Dean, says I way nearly four hundred pounds."

"Right. Ok. And a guy your size, nearly a hundred seventy, I think, so hundred-plus pound wings. right. because that makes sense."

"Dean..."

"Sorry. on three, okay?" He skims the feathers lightly, and Castiel gasps.

"Okay, buddy?"

"Yes. please proceed." Dean grips his wing bone, not too tightly, but enough that he seems to be pouring everything into him. Castiel can feel their bond, whatever strange thing it is, solidify and tug at his essence. Dean’s soul is bared to him through his touch, as shiny and pure as the day he was born. Souls like Dean’s never falter, dim, or go out. Even after the years in the pit, Dean’s soul is clearer than Sam’s ever was. He gave himself over to Lucifer, couldn’t fight his destiny, not like Dean did.

"On three, Cas. One, Two," Dean pulls sharply up on the wing, getting the tip onto the bed and correcting the skew angle so that the gash lines up with the flat bone.

"Three." Cas croaks, throat tight.

"Three." Dean echos, still bracing his wing and pouring his soul into Cas.


End file.
